Batman Arkham City: Armored Edition

Good Amazon Readers & Nintendo Wii U Owners:I have owned all Nintendo Home Consoles since their inception several years back. When I saw this game come out on other consoles, I almost went to the dark side and picked up an XBox 360.Yet, I have to say when I saw this game coming to the Wii U, in many ways this was the System Seller. I likely would have purchased this new system regardless, but this game had me the most excited.I did not play this game before on other consoles, so I won't give you that type of review (which seems to be almost all of them).This is the best action / adventure game I have ever played. This game rivals the best of them out there and one of the major reasons is its gameplay. The gameplay is simply AWESOME. As a fan of Batman the Animated Series from the 90s, this game delivers everything you'd hope to see in a Batman Game.The action mechanics and gameplay work so seamlessly, it’s an incredible joy to play. When you go into a room to take down 20 thugs (seriously 20 plus), you go get em! You can utilize your bat claw, ice gadgets, your cape, blocking and much more. And there is some serious gratification man-handling this many villains.Another item worthy of discussion is the amount of items to do in this game. With all the DLC and the side missions, you will be running over rooftops at night in Gotham City for a long time. You will have plenty of time to upgrade your skills and smash on random thugs as the Dark Knight. Catwoman, Night Wing & Robin are great additions.The number of gadgets, abilities and scope of this game are impressive. The graphics and sound are top notch and most importantly, I don't remember having this much fun playing a game in a long time. Just a minute on the graphics: The scenery in Gotham City and other locations is incredible. Many times I find myself just looking around at it and enjoying the new Wii U in its glory.The Wii U Gamepad is perhaps the best controller ever made. It’s something you need to experience. And the gamepad features on Batman, while they have been given mostly a moderate review, are fantastic. The map is there, your inventory is there, the phone calls come into your speakers and more. Could they have done more – I am sure, but I am content with the effort.If you own a Wii U and you have ever considered a Batman Game, this is the MUST OWN game for you. I assure you that there will be no disappointment.This is one of those games I find that I will go back and play through at least one more time. I will certainly re-visit the Riddler challenges for some time now. For Wii U owners, you can’t afford to miss this one.Best Batman Game made to date!

I've never had a Batman game before. Only other "superhero" type game I ever had was a couple of the Spiderman games, simply because of the unique movement through the environment compared to the first person shooters that are my normal bread and butter on a game console.I purchased it specifically for the Wii-U because I like the Pad's integration in games. Spiderman, Lego City Undercover, it adds a nice touch. And here, as well, it adds to it. Like Lego City Undercover, when you're talking to someone via radio, you hear them on the speakers of the pad. However, this was my first strike on the game - when you turn OFF the sound on the pad (such as when you're playing after kids are in bed using headphones) then it does *NOT* automatically put the sound through the normal output with the rest of the things so you can hear it on the headphones. That was one thing I got used to on Lego City, that if I turned off the volume on the pad, the radio conversations would play both sides over the headphones then. Not this one. And I had several instances where even with the pad volume on, I'd only hear one side of the conversation, it would glitch the other. And sometimes it was the main character's voice missing, not the one that would've played on the pad anyway.There are a lot of combo moves. If you're not a fan of having to memorize a ton of button combinations for one game, then pass this one. But that being said, you can survive just doing the basics.Flight is frustrating. Just gliding around and grappling to points to move is easy, but there are "advanced" challenges that require some serious accuracy as to when to stop your fall when flying to get into a tunnel or something, and being a 2D video game, it can be a pain getting that change from dive to level flight at just the right moment. In the forums people talk about having tried a single challenge for two days, and giving up and putting the game away. The challenges don't appear to be tied to finishing or even progressing the game (I haven't finished the game yet, but I've advanced pretty far and to this point not finishing them isn't causing me any issues), but I understand their frustration, dealing with a couple of them myself.Graphics are smooth - even flying around and having the cityscape all around. Combat is smooth with only a couple instances of hesitation and delay. There are a multitude of attacks to choose from, but you may get bored with the nonstop fighting since each fight is pretty much like the next.You also can pick up "Riddler trophies" which are hidden things scattered around the city. Most have switches or puzzles of some sort to figure out to open a cage holding the trophy. Some you can't get till later in the game, so if there's one you can't figure out, just mark it on the map and come back to it later when you have more gear and more options.The interaction with the Wii-U game pad is very well done, other than the sound glitch. But I also had issues when I would go to the upgrades page, since initially it never let me scroll to the sides, so I never knew there were more upgrades available than what was shown on the first page it displays for each category. When I finally tried again since I had maxed out everything I could early on, and found that it could scroll, it wouldn't STAY scrolled, and kept reverting back to the first page. Eventually I got it responding right, but it took a bit. But those were the only glitches with the pad so far.Switching from Batman to Cat Woman is pretty cool as well, different fighting styles and different weapons and abilities. Those trophies I mentioned above, they come in "his and her" flavors, some are for Batman, some are for Cat Woman.Going into "detective mode" lets you use your suit's enhanced capabilities, such as seeing things around walls, and it makes finding "bad guys" a lot easier when you're just flying around looking for some butt to kick to get some experience.Even with the few glitches and problems, it's very enjoyable though. I paid less getitng it quite a bit after launch, and at this price it was definitely worth it.